Guitar Wolf, Lords of Altamont, the Schizophonics, the Shakewells at the Usual Place, Saturday 5-25-24

 

Although my lovely wife made it to the Punk Rock Bowling festival, I bowed out this year since there wasn't that much that interested me to any major degree. The clubs shows are more of my thing, although there were so many each night that there was no way to catch every band that you wanted to see. This particular line-up seemed to me to be the overall strongest of the entire weekend, so this is the one that I opted for.

We've been wanting to see Vegas' new garage rock phenomenon, the Shakewells, for at least a year, so we were happy that they were the openers for this evening. With Vegas punk rock stalwarts Rob Ruckus on bass and Turbo (Gerry Vincent) on drums, they have a solid backing for organist Kate (also guitarist in the Negative Nancys), vocalist Danny and I'm afraid I do not know the guitarist. They have a fab, authentic 60's garage sound, with Farfisa organ, reverbed, tremelo'd, fuzz-out guitars, groovy vocals and with plenty of superior originals that blend in with covers like "Night of the Sadist". Nice to see a new, strong garage act in town, since we only have a couple of others. Great stuff - see them when you can!

Of course, the Schizophonics are the rising stars of the high-energy garage scene, with a revolving bassist (they have a strong female player this time out) teaming up with the always-amazing Lety (also of the Rosalyns and numerous other projects) to backup powerhouse guitarist/singer/dancing maniac Pat in their set of garage/punk/soul shimmy/shakin' psychoses! No one can believe how Pat manages to dance like James Brown, sing like Rob Tyner and play guitar like Jimi Hendrix all simultaneously! Pat doesn't stop for a minute of the set, flying from side to side of the stage, spinning like a top, dropping his guitar and picking it up in between dance steps and way more than anyone could possibly describe. Still photos do not do him justice, so check out some videos and see them live! Of course, the music is fab, as well, from their opening with the MC5's "Black To Comm" to their several albums worth of incredible originals. No one walks away without being converted - check them out if you haven't already!

Of course, I've known Jake from the Lords of Altamont for decades and while I only got to exchange a few pleasantries with him this night while bands were playing, it was great to see the Lords play again. They performed with movies projected behind them and basically no other lights so photos basically just show silhouettes but the guys - bass, drums, guitar and Jake on vocals and keys - move'n'perform'n'pose with the best of them! They have a heavy, almost hard rock, garage sound, although the keys bring it all back to the 60's garage influences that they are based in. I need to delve into their catalog more as I thought that they were stronger than ever this time out - and that was without the fire and hot go-go dancers that they have had in the past. Also, it was incredibly nice of Jake to give a shout-out to me at the end of their set! Certainly unexpected!

Headlining the night was the anarchistic, Japanese punk’n’roll of Guitar Wolf. This trio is as much performance art as music as they pummeled the audience with walls of noise, frenzied screams, leaps into the fray and much more. Completely unpredictable because they don’t follow the usual rock and roll rules with power chords and screams repeated seemingly endlessly, songs with no bass as he jumps into the crowd, attempts at audience interaction but no one understands what they want and for an apparent finale but we missed it, apparently Pat from the Schizos joined them at one point. Not for the faint of heart or those who are looking for coherent songs but certainly wild fun!

Excellent lineup for this show and fun from start to finish! Glad we made it out for a change, although we were exhausted for days!